


Comfortably Numb

by colt



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Depression, Gen, Post CA:TWS, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, flash backs, mentions of Bucky - Freeform, mentions of Sam - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 21:42:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,009
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1794154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colt/pseuds/colt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve's having a hard time with nothing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Comfortably Numb

Steve wasn’t in his apartment. It was there, under his feet. He was sure his bed was around here somewhere. But he wasn’t just two steps towards the couch, remote in hand, anymore. There was the sound of leaves, wet ones, making a crisp slurping sound as feet pushed them deeper into the dirt. The sky had obsurred his dingy TV in a mass of flames falling like arrows. He could smell blood, maybe. Or it could be the copper of his canteen. There was a figure getting thrashed by bullets up ahead, and his indecision grew roots and planted itself in the ground. He wanted to help, but there were men-living ones-somewhere close by, and he wanted to keep them that way. And he was also aware of the unreality of the situation. Because he knew that guy, and this moment, and he knew the results. He wasn’t in brush, he was knee deep in PTSD. Steve turned away, as far as his shaking legs would let him, and glimpsed splotches of the present.   
“Lamp from IKEA. Rug, gift from Pepper. Hard wood floors. Theres a scratch here from Clint’s arrow. He’s still apologizing. White walls. Painting from Kerry J., who's in kindergarten. Its me and Sam, he’s in wings. We’re standing on top of the world. Wooden dining table. Four chairs. Plate I was too lazy to put away this morning.” Sam told his this was a grounding trick, for those flashback moments.  
It smelt like syrup, not copper or blood. There was a plink, then a cheering crowd as some player made some great hit on the TV. That guy is lying in some cemetery in D.C. It had been some seventy years ago since he got chewed out for bringing the body home. He took a deep breath, one that was punctured by infrequent gasps. “I’m in my apartment. My name is Steve Rogers and this is the twenty first century. The games on between the Yankees and Red Socks and I’m missing it.”   
Steve changed out of his ‘ready-for-the-real-world’ clothes and back into his sweatshirt and pyjamas combo. He pulled up his hood and laid himself out on the couch. He was farther into doing absolutely nothing then he had originally intended. He was gonna watch the game, lounge around, what he had considered doing nothing. Now he was barely even existing in the realm of nothing. Before, even his nothing was something. He laid there and saw, but didn’t watch, his team round another set of bases. He didn’t cheer, and definitely didn’t feel happy, or anything at all for that matter. What an empty bag of skin he had turned into after such a small trick of the eye.   
\----

It was dark out. He was staring blankly at the screen, which happened to be showing a golf match. The ball would fly up, higher, everything would get quite, then it would fall somewhere not even really that close and the commentator would call it a great shot and then an oooh’ would run through the small crowd. And when it was a bad shot, the oooh’ would be a little lower, and a little more pity filled. And Steve thought nothing of any of this. He had spent a whole day thinking about nothing, being nothing, doing nothing. For a second, hardly enough to count, he considered the dinner plans he’d made with Sam. They were gonna have wings at some bar slash restaurant. He thought about the plans, but not about going, or even calling them off. He continued starting forward. 

He was in a sorry state. Really, what a wreck. His day long plunge into the void had accidently turned into a few week-long trip into a sort of emotionless black hole. He managed to consolidate his energy by not moving an inch so that he could do his once daily bathroom trip, and that was the extent of his movement. At this point SHIELD would have had him in the base psych ward, but they’d been destroyed. Bucky, were they to have found him, would be pulling him out of this by his shirt collar. And Sam, Steve didn’t know or have the capacity to wonder where he was with his soothing, repetitive, ‘you’ll get through this’ type coaxing. There wasn’t really anyone else who’d care that he hadn’t eaten or left the house in nineteen days. Hell, even he didn’t care. Well, he’d discounted someone.   
\---------

“Steve, we have a mission.” Natasha said from his balcony window. Steve didn’t give any sort of reaction to the news. Had Natasha not been watching Steve for the past week, half by Sam’s request and half on her own accord, she would have thought he hadn’t heard her. He mine as well not have, for all he considered what she said. Another disaster? How monotonous. He was aware that he should be doing something concerning the mission, but didnt. He just wasn’t feeling, mmmh, up to it. 

“Steve. You can’t keep doing this. It’s hard, I know it’s hard, but you have to live in this present.” Natasha explained in a tone that suggested he didn’t have much of a choice. Maybe she was right. Maybe she’d be right if she understood this at all. She didn’t though. Steve wasn’t in his old present, but he sure wasn’t much in this new one. He was lost in time. I’d be romantic if it wasn’t true. He responded the best way he could manage, with no reply. 

Nat pressed something on her wrist. He knew this because of the slight click the button made when triggering whatever it did. “The Avengers are assembling at Stark Tower, and right now it’s my mission to get you there. And I always complete a mission.” His window to the left shattered, the glass giving glimpses of red and yellow while it fell.   
“Hey Captain-sad-pants, get your….uh...stuff”, Tony Stark said, tilting his head at the bargain basement furniture littering the loft, “You’re moving in.”


End file.
